Epilogue to Magic Snow
by Nicole Anell
Summary: Something hopelessly shmoopy and a little bit angsty that I wrote for last year's BtVS Santa on livejournal. BuffyAngel. Three connected ficlets that take place in Angel season 1, Buffy season 3, and postseries.
1. Christmas Present

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written in 2004 for the BTVS Secret Santa on livejournal, for sheryllc who wanted Buffy/Angel Christmas fic. Thanks to hermionesviolin for the beta read.

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**Epilogue to Magic Snow**

1: Christmas Present

Angel and Buffy have very short phone conversations. They weren't supposed to have any anymore, but things come up -- averted apocalypse things. They just want to be on the same page. When that's out of the way, she says, "How are you?"

He says, "Getting there."

"Still with the vague and shadowy then?"

"You know me."

She says, once or twice, "Angel..." with nothing to follow it.

He doesn't tell her where he is, and when Cordelia finally does, the phone calls stop for a while.

----------------------

What happened after the big Christmas was that the dreams went away. If they didn't leave for good, at least they changed. The pain changed from outstanding, unbearable First-Evil-induced trauma to the garden-variety kind that keeps him souled and unhappy. He sees Jenny less, and she never sounds as vindictive or looks as unafraid. He stays in the city of sun and light, of movie stars preening before their own reflections, maybe because it's the opposite of where he belongs. When he sees snow on television, he gets a weird mental picture of Drusilla catching flakes of snow like gnats and twisting in the wind. It's actually one of the better snow memories he has to focus on.

Cordelia hangs red and green lights in the office, and she shrieks that there could be ticks in the wreath. She lounges at her desk and says, "He could call her. Calling's still okay, right? It's not like they hate each other."

It's been less than a month, and Wesley and Cordy have taken to discussing Angel's life while he's in the room. Wesley's eyes still dart around awkwardly about it though, like he isn't quite sure Angel won't maim and kill him, or worse tell him to leave the agency. He says, "Overall, I think it's a decision that Angel himself has to make."

"And I think that a little friendly advice -- or criticism, or nudging with pointy objects -- couldn't hurt. Look, this is the kind of thing I'm normally far too busy to care about. When _my_ heart is going out to poor little Buffy and her doomed lovers routine? You know it's serious."

"Are you certain you're not just bored? A lack of demon mayhem, and so we resort to--"

"Hey, let's pretend this has nothing to do with the recent patheticness of _my_ life, and concentrate on the very intense patheticness of theirs. This is about closure. A broody, un-closured creature of the night is nobody's friend, Wesley."

The ex-Watcher looks off, wistfully. "It is the holidays. People get particularly lonely, and... it is nice to hear familiar voices. I suppose if it wasn't completely reconcilitory, only--"

"Oh please, no one's pushing for the completely. Only works fine."

"Angel, have you any imput on this?"

"I was waiting to see how long it would go on without me pointing out that I'm standing right here," he answers. "But for the record, maybe the holidays are when people like me should be particularly alone."

"What about that time where you wanted to go back to Hell, and then the universe started snowing?"

He groans, "I wasn't looking to go _back_ anywhere," because he wasn't at all. If he could just keep things from happening, happening to him and... Buffy. "It was more about-- going."

"Well... good that you handled that without the burning then," says Cordy. "How's it working out?"

"Second of all, Wes--" Wesley's eyes pop up at the diversion. "You were saying something about demon mayhem?"

Wesley opens his mouth excitedly before he remembers he has nothing important to say, which seems to physically pain him. "Lack of it, I was actually saying," he admits quietly.

Cordy sighs. "Don't change the subject. Haven't you even been listening at all?"

"Not really, no," says Angel.

She shoots a look at Wes and mutters, "See, this is why we can do the thing where we act like he's furniture."

"Angel, if this conversation is making you uncomfortable, please don't hesitate to-" Wesley is a thirty-year-old ball of barely-restrained fear, and Angel wishes every day that he didn't find that interesting.

Cordy interrupts, "Oh, bonus? You two can't get any kind of groiny over the phone." The bad image makes her head jerk up suddenly. "Oh god, if you do, don't use this phone. I sit here."

It isn't supposed to be like this; he figured that much out. They were trying for distance and moving on. Instead she has his phone number, and he knows the exact amount of gas it takes him to drive up to Sunnydale. They barely survived Thanksgiving, in more ways than one, but she doesn't know that anymore. It's complicated, which is the last thing life is supposed to be when you disappear.

Only he didn't disappear, clearly. Back to square one. If there is a higher power, that power is taking all its godly energy to forcibly keep him from taking the coward's way out, no matter how many times he tries. But that doesn't mean he should give in and call her again.

He already sent her gift in the mail.

----------------------

Every now and then, Angel likes to brag about having a photographic memory, because that puts him in control of it. It's one of those hilarious cosmic tragedies, so perfectly goddamn funny that someone had to prearrange it. Someone had to decide it would be fun to combine a soul and flawless mental recall, just to see what would happen.

He had only one real picture of Buffy stowed away, and only the Irishman had seen it. He wasn't going to hold onto anything like that, even promised he wouldn't, but it somehow found its way into his hand and then into his pocket the night he left. The sketches didn't start until... August, maybe. He doesn't date them. He hides them places he knew his staff of misfits wouldn't look. The first thing he knew when Wesley showed up was that he needed to get them out of the books again.

He's always been perfect at shadows and shading, and can draw almost any kind of light reflected off her. Almost. He is very detailed, and knows how important it is to get the exact thing her eyes do when she smiles, that makes her look smart and a little like she's hiding something or giving something. He could say he loses hours doing this on slow nights, but that would be fanatical and unhealthy. It wouldn't be like the coping, souling detective version of him, so it's not the kind of thing he should share with anybody.

In December, he becomes interested in drawing her happy, the only way he wants to imagine her. He got the image of her laughing with her friends, and meant at one point to draw them all, but he couldn't find it in him to care about finishing the others. So it was just her, laughing, with the shortish hair and the boots -- when she used to have those. He doesn't know why he sends her that one, folded in two with no card and one of the office's Christmas stamps. It was some kind of holiday panic attack he didn't know he could have. When a week goes by, he tries to forget he did it, but he always remembers everything.

One day he comes in and Cordelia is chirping on the telephone. "Oh, guess who lives here now. You won't. Think LA convention of more demon-fighter types you don't like-- hang on." Before Angel can complain, she covers the phone and tells him, "Not gossiping, not company time. Xander left a message. This is good manners."

He says nothing and heads away. Before he walks out, she puts on the most falsely nonchalant tone she can manage. "Also, Buffy called. She actually left a message too."

He stops walking and doesn't turn around, only hearing the click and the tired words come scratching out of the machine. _What the hell, Angel?_ (silence) _Look, we can't keep -- I mean, just --_ (silence) _Call me._

----------------------

Lately, their phone conversations are even shorter than they used to be.

He says, "I won't send you anything else."

She says, "Angel..."

He says, "I'm sorry I'm not making this easier."

"I just don't know what you want."

He doesn't tell her what he wants. He says, "I need to not hear from you."

She says, "And a Happy New Year," before the click and the silence.

"So I have some questions for you," Cordelia practically sing-songs when she sees him again.

"I have some get-back-to-work for you," he says as he closes himself in his office.


	2. Christmas Past

**Epilogue to Magic Snow**

2: Christmas Past

"Where do you want to go?" she asked him, tentatively. Buffy figured they might both start crying and yelling and smacking each other around, but hey, they did that already tonight. She was making an effort not to imagine any good that could happen -- snowball fights, fireside cuddling, normal boyfriend stuff. Instead they did their own normal, which involved demon parts and dirt and doing the break-up two-step dance of who's leaving who this week.

Well, not demons so much, because the only thing lurking in the shadows seemed to be native Californians staring up like they'd seen the Second Coming itself, or children tracing angels in their yards. "I don't get this," she said at one point. "Don't vampires like snow?"

"Personally, I don't like getting my hair wet." He strikes her completely deadpan sometimes, and it's always just a little bit weird.

"It's not that I'm complaining for the lack of fight scenes," she went on. "I just don't get why they're all hibernating."

"Maybe they feel like they shouldn't be out here. Just know it."

"Why do you think that?" she asked.

"Because I feel like I should be."

She held his hand a little tighter. "Well," she said, easy-going as she could manage, "that's definitely another point for the you're-special-and-everyone-wants-you-to-live team."

"I know, I-" he sighed. "I'm okay now. It's over. Don't worry about me."

She looked at him kindly. "It's really pretty late for that."

He tried to smile, or didn't. Looks like that were once why God created street lights.

He said, "You're freezing." They hadn't conquered the awkward non-sequiter thing yet, but it wasn't the worst of their problems. The worst of them probably involved the way he hooked his arms around her when he bundled her into his jacket. Black over blue. "I don't need it," he said.

"Oh- right. Thank you."

Warm-weather clothing. That's something they needed to get around. She kept stopping by with no jacket, little dresses, and she doesn't know what she's thinking. That can't be a good, little thin layers of cotton separating their bodies. Maybe that was the point of the snow. A winter like this is something they should be able to handle all right. She thought, if we can just keep together under heavy jackets, then it's okay.

Angel pulled her out of her thoughts. "Maybe we should call Giles. He might have some kind of idea."

Her brow furrowed. "He might-- have an idea about our...?"

"About - this." He gestured upward.

"Right -- yeah. Mystical weather. Snowy chaos." She nodded repeatedly. "That would be good, do some research, get some exposition. Or, you know, alternately - just putting this out there - we could wait an hour or two, and call him at a less breakish time of dawn."

"We could do that."

"We could, right now... I don't know. Stay out. Do this for a while."

Warm-weather clothing, it tends to be a problem because something between them travelled by air. Sense memories sometimes got into their skin, tortured them in dreams. A penetrating kiss, or a low pain in her back where he shoved her at a wall, left her crumpled on the ground, and with her un-keen, un-vampire senses she still knew he smelled like blood _not him, that other thing._

"Angel..." she said quietly, "Was it cold when you were in-?" but she broke the question off when their eyes met, and forced an embarrassed smile. Look at kooky Buffy, asking you questions about hell.

"I didn't feel it," he said. They had become very good at reading each other's minds, and lying effortlessly.

"I think we could do this for a while," she repeated again, and they walked.

----------------------

In the library Willow was saying, "It's 'cause of he's English, I guess. He said he's more used to the traditional, melted kind of rain."

"Snow does bring out the very manly terror. My Uncle Rory convinced himself he was having a heart attack from the picking _up_ of a shovel."

Willow turned around in a giddy spin. "Buffy, you should've been there this morning. We made irregular snowmen and ate hot cocoa and had a whole second childhood!"

"Plus didn't you think Oz was, like, 75 percent more emotive than usual?"

Willow beamed proudly. "I thinked he cracked part of a smile!"

"And then my mom tried to make snow cones out of Martini mix. Dad went to the basement bar and didn't come up all afternoon. It was the best Christmas ever."

"It was pretty good," Buffy said.

Willow's smile didn't fade, but her eyebrows tilted into concern. "Where's Angel? Was- was everything with him okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, he's fine. We were outside and then... then we went in for a little while." She stopped it at that, somewhat guarded.

"Well, I should get points for being mildly relieved he's not dead." Xander cast a quick glance to Buffy, mostly to gauge whether he'd need stitches for continuing. "_More_ dead," he clarified. "Again. In fact, you may never hear this again, but yay Angel. Guy should make it snow more often. I could like him making snow."

Buffy smirked. "And that _would_ be a Christmas miracle." She looked at Willow. "In a wintery, secular, non-denominational way."

"Darn tootin'," Willow agreed.

"I'm not saying this whole peace-on-earth-good-will-towards-vampires thing won't get old by June," Xander quickly added. "You have to think about the pool and baseball industry."

"Weather people said it'll clear up by tomorrow," said Buffy.

"They also said, 'Hey, it never ever snows in California, so expect another brown Christmas.' This isn't exactly their territory."

"No, it's ours. But _I_ say it'll clear up."

Willow chimed in, "I think the mystical forces of good would want Giles to drive to work again, eventually."

"Right." Buffy looked at the wall. "And you know, Angel's okay now. So it's not a big deal."

----------------------

She had crashed around 2:00, when the snow still hadn't let up. Running on next-to-no sleep used to throw her off balance for days, when she was younger. Now a little nap would usually cover it -- mid-day, American History class, whatever. His place was closer than hers, and that was all that was important by the time her breath became visible and her cheeks flushed bright pink. He brushed the white specks from her hair, like leaves. He'd done that before. _Fall, a year ago, there was mutual scooching to the most comfortable positions in the grass, before kissing and kissing again in that determined way they had, giggling when fallen leaves prickled her neck._ Her head started to hurt, from either the cold or exhaustion or that little trip down memory lane. It seemed awfully depressing and appropriate that they would ever have done that in a graveyard, tracking lines in the soil and waiting for something evil to rise.

In the snow, they found refuge under a store awning, and he blew non-oxygen on her neck, _they had red sheets once, a little starchy and she didn't mind it_ and it drew their faces together like a magnet. Pressing and inches apart like those same-sided magnets that can't touch. "Angel, I can't make this stop," she said quietly.

His nose grazed her cheek gently. "We'll just... take some time."

Black over blue, nice comfy layers on her and he just had thin cotton under her fingers. "Right. Just that it's- dangerous."

The smallest of words exhaled onto her lips. "When we - get close."

Met him halfway and kissed him once. "And that would be... wrong." Kissed him again.

They mutually scooched into his place, read each other's minds, and lied that it was completely naturally to just lie down for a minute and get away from the cold, which certainly had never led to bad things before. "I want it to still be Christmas when I wake up," she whispered. She thought, winter clothes, layers, and just kissing faces are okay. She concentrated the same-sided magnet effect on other parts of their bodies.

At one point, when they were almost sleeping, he asked if she trusted him. She thought there was so much honesty in him asking her that, and so much dishonesty in her just saying "yes." She didn't say the whole truth of it. That yes, she trusted him with her life, but no, she didn't know if she could trust him to be there when she woke up, and she didn't trust the clouds to keep making snow and keeping him safe.

At one point, she said, "I have a present for you in my house. I got everybody..."

He said, "I didn't get you anything." The ridiculousness of the admission made her laugh. She heard him murmur, "I'm sorry I didn't."

"It's okay," she said back.

"Birthday," she heard him say softly. "Get you something nice." _she turned seventeen in the mall, lightning-fast, didn't even see him until she was on the ground, and there were sprinklers drenching them like rain water and he wouldn't--_

She jerked awake.

_wouldn't make her warm again_

"Angel?"

He hummed into her shoulder, then looked up with the slight recognition that her heart had jumped. "What's the matter?"

Moments passed, in which she ran her fingers down his arm like he was very strong, flesh-shaped glass, and kissed his hands. When she found her voice again, what came out was, "Stay close to me."

He said, "Always," and for at least that second she believed he meant it.


	3. Christmas Yet To Come

**Epilogue to Magic Snow**

3: Christmas Yet to Come

They might have this tradition where her mom sends reindeer cookies by express mail, and then Dawn stays overnight blasting pop covers of Christmas songs on the stereo. This could happen, years from now, and it will be so beautiful when that's their kind of problem. They might make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and it's something about cookie metaphors.

Buffy could come home from Macy's with her nametag and Santa hat, and they could make love in the shower before the kids get home from school. She could complain some days about what he does to her clothes, because he's off blood and back on nicotine. Or maybe it'll go the other way. Maybe they listen to police scanners late at night, and they go off slaying when they have to, when one of their allies is home sick. Maybe that comes more naturally to them than normalcy, and they're okay dealing with that.

----------------------

_"Ten minutes!" She came over in a rush. "I'm here, see. Only ten minutes late."_

"I wasn't worried," he said.

"I kept telling myself you might not..." she caught herself and let the sentence end there. "Look, I had this- this whole thing I'm supposed to say, and then it might end with me slapping you. I thought I should warn you about that."

"How was Italy?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Oh, you know. Peaceful, quiet. Italian."

"Wouldn't have guessed." They studied each other for a minute. "Nobody told me you got a tan."

She exhaled something like a laugh. "Yeah, well there's a lot of things people don't tell me lately." They didn't blink when the sunlight rose over the Hollywood sign.

"I forgot it was like this," he said.

"Here I thought you remember everything."

----------------------

They could have a real tree instead of artificial. Not that they're making early plans or anything. It's just it would be nice to have a real tree, and since the pointy wood wouldn't be an issue anymore, it could happen. The kids could be maybe three and seven, and little Shannon goes "If Santa and Frosty fought each other, who would win?" Will sticks a piece of tree popcorn in his mouth and says "Spida-man."

"You know, your mom used to be a superhero."

Shannon buries herself in Buffy's shoulder and whines, "I heard this!"

"You did, huh?" She gives Angel a slightly spiteful but not unamused look. He shrugs.

"It's a cool story," he says.

Will tugs at his shirt. "I wanna hear."

"I'm guessing you gave her the Cliff Note version."

"You know me." That could get a smile from her.

"I wanna hear!" Will says again.

She gets close enough so the kids won't hear and whispers, "If you teach them the word 'champion', I'm divorcing you and taking the car."

"Mommy's just kidding," he says. He could draw the younger one closer and pretend he has Connor back. "She doesn't even like the car."

----------------------

_"Some things haven't changed."_

"I know that. You think I don't know that?"

"I still have my life," she continued anyway, trying to ignore the very faint thumpy noise in his chest and stare at the sky instead. "And you have everything here, and -- I mean, we're still me and still you. And everything that goes along with that-"

"You still ice skate?" he asked suddenly.

"Actually, no. Actually, it's been a very long..." she brought her head down and closed her eyes.

"Very long," he repeated. They were in each others' arms by now and couldn't seem to help that.

"It's like I want to go back," she said finally. "You have no idea how I... I just want everything to go back." He kissed her hair as the tears fell. "I don't even know to when. I don't even think it can."

"Some things didn't change, you just said that."

"A lot of things did, Angel."

"Maybe we're not supposed to go back. That's the whole point."

She sniffled and pulled away slightly. "So you get me all the way here to say that? Isn't that more a phone thing?"

"We don't go back," he said. "We never go back. We just go."

She laced her fingers in his and watched the sky turn orange. "So is that literal go, or are you doing your redemption fortune-cookie thing?"

He said, "Tell me."

----------------------

They're going to live in the East, when the whole thing settles down. They might go through the options over and over, and they might do whatever they can to convince themselves they don't deserve -- whatever this is. Sebbatical. Premature retirement. But it's pretty settled then, that this could happen, and they end up living in the East and going gray with the fat grandkids by the Atlantic Ocean. This isn't any more impossible than everything else that's happened to them. It could be warm every morning. It could snow in December and remind them oddly of home.

-end-


End file.
